Lovely day today climbing into the Apennines proper, 142 miles and some 9000 feet of climbing. We left Montegridolfo at 06:00 after a rather pathetic breakfast the hotel had left for us consisting of small cheese triangles and even smaller bottles of fruit juice. Straight into the first climb of the day, up into the mountains through Borgo Massano and on through Urbino. There's something about the name 'Umbria' that immediately allows you to understand the place; rolling green hills, wheat fields full of poppies and an all pervasive tranquility.
By mid afternoon after a series of steep climbs and sweeping descents we started our escape from the northern mountains at Foligno, we followed the plane south through Trevi until starting to climb again at Spoleto. After an afternoon in the mountains we got into Rieti after 8 O'clock, climbed one last massive hill which unfortunately proved to be the wrong one and we had to descend it again and find an alternative route which brought us to the hotel after 8:30 in a warm Italian twilight.
The Park Hotel Villa Potenziani is a huge barn of a place, a country house full of antiques and mannequins wearing period costumes. Unfortunately as we were the only people staying there they hadn't opened the restaurant but kindly put on a taxi to take us to an excellent local restaurant, outside of which was a plinth marking the exact centre of Italy.
Stats for today
142 miles
9,000 feet of climbs
6300 calories burned
48,000 peddle turns!
Here's a GPX file for the planned day 2 ride
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